Snowmageddon: 1993 and Now

The jet stream was kinda messed up that winter, and it swept in cold winds from the north, setting up the stage for a virtual catastrophe. The clouds became cold, thick jumbles, and water condensed and froze onto little dust particles floating up in the atmosphere, compiling on itself and growing to become the delicate little snowflakes that we admire- and fear- so much. These tiny, fragile crystals came together and wreaked havoc upon the whole east coast. Here is an NOAA explanation on the making of a snowflake.

And yeah, we’re staring down another beast of a blizzard.

Yesterday, I sat down in eighth period English, with expectations that Tuesday we’d be off from school, and Wednesday would be a two-hour delay. Nothing more. We’d already had 7 snow days, over our limit of 6, so they’d have to cut a day out of Easter break as is. Any more and we’d be tacking on a couple extra days to the end of the school year.

“Alright. I’ve got your work for the rest of the week. You know, the school board’s predicting no school maybe ’til Friday. They’re thinking 14-22 inches, which really means we’re getting 3 feet. Which means 3 days without school.” My English teacher gestured to the list of assignments scrawled out on the word with squeaky chalk. A bell ringer packet, a Study Island blue ribbon, draft and complete our informative essays, et cetera, et cetera. She shrugged as if to say, yeah, I really don’t like this homework either. “I know it’s a lot, but we’re effectively losing a week here, and state testing is coming in, like, 3 weeks, and we have to get through another argumentative speech, another informative, a narrative,” she paused for a moment, glancing at me and the couple of other kids notorious for producing prolix stories, “and a weeklong grammar intensive. Although, really, it’s not that much. It’s about an hour and a half, and usually we have 3 hours of class a week.”

The whole class simultaneously groaned and cheered at the same time. No school (yay!), but we’ve got homework (boo).

“These forecasts remind me of the Blizzard of ’93, actually,” she continued. “Ask your parents ‘bout it. It was crazy.”

Well, that’s exactly what I did (with my awesome sister in the background singing Olaf’s song from Frozen ad nauseum).

My dad found his car by standing on top of it. Just walked outside, and heard the hollow thunk of his snow boots on the top of his car. “I just kinda thought, ‘well, I’m definitely not going to work today’.”

My mom said that only essential personnel like the authorities or ambulances were allowed on the roads. You could literally just stand in the middle of the road, ‘cause really, no one was driving on it.

In contrast with the amusing instance of my dad’s discovery of his car, with a bit of research, I discovered that this was a serious event that led to a lot of deaths. 300 of them, in fact. Storm surges whipped up by winds and tornados created by colliding fronts devastated areas still reeling from Hurricane Andrew, causing a winter disaster of epic proportions.

It’s a whiteout for me outside right now. Just nothing but a blur of ivory flakes outside the living room window. I’m really hoping that this won’t be like ’93.

Climate change is doing lots of things The storms are worsening and the heat are truly scorching (think wild bush fires in other parts of the world); there seems to be nothing in between. It makes me wonder how much worse can it get.

Hope you don’t get snowed in for too long! Enjoy the short break and it’s always nice to stay warm with cuddles and hot chocolates! x.

Hope you’re all fairing better. Sounds pretty bad. Send some of it our way to Colorado. We’re approaching drought conditions with a mild winter and not much moisture, except for the ski areas up in the mountains.

We’re having 60 and 70 degrees with predictions up to around 80 this weekend. Last year around this time, we had 40+ inches of snow fall over a 3-day storm. Hang in there and be safe and hope you guys dig out soon.

Enjoy writing and homework, as I do tell my grandies who range from 12 down to 18 months (but don’t lecture him!) Homework is no big deal compared to so many projects and bills you will write in the future. Almost every adult says they wished they could go back and really appreciate school!
I will say possibly my worst snow ever was (gasp!!) In the spring of 1978! I was a senior at BGSU in Ohio. We had a whole floor level of snow (8-9 feet plus bigger drifts) !!
On the other hand, college meant we could jump out windows to get out and we got a hold of sleds and saucers to pull across the snow to purchase beverages we were allowed to imbide. No homework and no classes for more than a week. As one who lived on the tenth floor of a dorm, “Offenhauer tower” I was content wearing the clothes I had originally walked up the stair well to retrieve. (Small backpack of deodorant, toothbrush, undies, and sweaters.) No electricity, so no elevator nor toilet flushing as we would go up a few floors to use after some were too nasty to use. Enough data and TMI, right?! ew, gross!
Thank goodness I had friends who had gas ovens and one who had a fireplace!! We would leave these two heating sources burning and open, while closing off the rest of their apartment (one friend) and house (another group of friends). xo Yay for snow days!!

Sounds like you are going through a cold spell again.. And I well remember days back in the 60’s in the UK, when we could not go to school. The roads were blocked and the electricity too went down. Our teachers couldn’t get into school and it was closed for a time..
I remember enjoying rolling giant snowballs and we even created an igloo with the help of our Dad..

Snow is cleansing the planet right now, as is the rain.. 🙂 And here in the UK I think we could well be picking up on your Jet stream as early as tomorrow as we have had snow forecast for out part of the world
Love and Hugs.. 🙂 xxx

Well I hope it’s not as dramatic but enjoy the beauty never the less❄️❄️
Thank you so much for sharing your stories/memories of changing weather during your childhood. Weather tends to bring about nostalgia.

Schoolkids here in the UK would be green with envy reading this. We’ve had a snow-less winter in most areas, so no fun days off school at all. People in places like Scotland and Central Wales will probably say differently, but here in the Midlands we’ve seen no snow at all. Our last really snowy winter was in 2010 and even then not all schools needed to close. As someone commented above, the 60s was a different matter. I remember 1963 very well, and I was living on the west coast then, which wasn’t as badly hit as some areas. I think the recent forecasts regarding the Jet Stream did affect more northerly parts of Britain, but near Lincoln we still remain snow-less. 🙂
Thank you for an interesting and well written post.